


First Encounter

by stefanie_bean



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Challenge Response, Children, Complete, Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-27
Updated: 2012-10-27
Packaged: 2017-11-17 04:20:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/547545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stefanie_bean/pseuds/stefanie_bean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Billy and Charlie Weasley go on holiday with Dad, and Charlie has his first encounter with a dragon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Encounter

**Author's Note:**

> _Written June 2007 for a challenge, and posted on FFN in September 2012._

Mum was at home with the new baby, a scrappy screechy little mandrake they decided to call Ronald Bilius, which was fancier than he deserved. So Charlie, Billy, and Dad got to go to the Scottish Highlands on a little holiday, to rest Dad's nerves. George and Fred, the two-year old twins, were too young to go off by themselves with the older boys, and so would stay at home with Mum.

"It's not much of a vacation for Mum, is it?" Dad muttered as the boys settled into the abandoned crofter's hut. The thin May sun did nothing to warm the stone, and the poorly-thatched roof let through faint sprays of anaemic light.

There was little to do inside except play with the stones and bits of charcoal left over from when a family of sheepherders lived here. They were long gone, however, forced from their cold mountain home by the British soldiers of almost two centuries past. Never would they know that a different band of outcasts sheltered under their roof on that craggy elevation where no one ever came.

With a few swipes of his wand, Dad soon had a fire crackling on the hearth, porridge bubbling in the old iron pot, and soft-mattressed cots lined up against the wall. To be fair, the pot did try to run about before he coaxed it back onto its hook, and to Charlie the first batch of oatmeal looked a bit too much like cooked sheep pellets.

Fed and restless, the boys ran out into the cold late afternoon, with not a thought for their father who sat on the edge of the longest cot, running his fingers absently through his thinning reddish hair, staring at the fire.

Outside, the quarrel started almost immediately. "I'm going down," said Bill. "There's a stream, see. I've got a pin here, and I'll make it into a hook. Dad always complains we never do anything for ourselves, so I'll show him."

Charlie shook his head. He wanted to go up, to scale that rocky path that seemed to lead right up to the glossy blue plate of sky. "I won't. There's a cave up there, you can see it from here."

"You've got to come with me, you sprat. Dad'll have a fit if I let you go off on your own."

"Make me. I'm going."

Billy was two years older, but much to his shame, his arms and chest were thin, and he and Charlie were the same height. Billy remembered how he smarted at the occasional punch or slam of Charlie's thick shoulder. It was a holiday, and he didn't feel like a fight. Let the sprout fall off a cliff, for all he cared. He was going to catch a fish, just like he'd heard the people did who lived in the villages below, and he would bring it back to Dad. Maybe it would cheer him up.

So Billy shrugged as if to say, What do I care? As he went down the path, Charlie ascended. Rocks sprayed below as his boots slipped on the gravelly path. He sweated, and for the first time since they'd arrived, the sun even felt warm on his face. It was very quiet except for the low constant hum of the wind.

The cave mouth was smaller than he thought, and he had to bend over to crawl inside. Almost at once he landed on a sharp stone, and the fabric of his breeches tore at the knee. Mum will howl like a banshee, he thought. She's always complaining about the mending, even though the wand does most of it. But he wasn't scratched at all, so on he went. He'd only travelled a few more feet on his hands and knees when a sharp pain stabbed through his right hand. Jumping up, he hit his head soundly on the tunnel roof. Tears threatened, but he fought them back. That's all he needed, to run back to Billy and Dad, blubbering like a baby. Like that screechy baby Ron.

He put his hand to his mouth, alarmed now at the blood that poured from the little line of holes. Something bit him! Ahead of him was black, and most of the late-afternoon sun behind him was blocked by his thick frame. Then something flashed bright and glassy, with a shivery noise like bangles tinkling against metal. He reached out without thinking and it bit him again, harder. Charlie howled, but at the same time grabbed the wiggling form. It felt like metal, cold and snakelike, as its small muscular body thrashed. The teeth were still buried deep in the round muscle of his thumb.

He wedged the writhing body between his knees, and remembered how Bill had caught a garden snake once, by pinching it behind the jaw, right where the head and neck meant. As he grabbed for the creature's neck, it sank its teeth in even farther, and now Charlie's hand began to go numb. Poison? he thought. Mum will be so mad, even if it kills me, she'll kill me again.

Then as if his hand knew just where to go, he grabbed the squirming creature right behind its head, and held tight. Its jaws snapped open, and Charlie tried to grasp its twisting body with his bloody hand, but the creature kept slipping away. Finally, with hands and knees working together, he managed to subdue it. He turned around carefully, angry that his breeches and tunic were sprayed with blood, but at the same time curious. It wasn't the creature's fault, after all. He'd come into its den, surprised it, and of course it would bite.

In the slanting sun, he finally got a good look at what he held in his gore-wetted hands. It was about a foot and a half long, its wings still budlike and its sharp-toed legs still short and lizard-like. Even though he held it firmly behind the head, it still snapped its jaws open and shut, so that its teeth made tiny clicks. Beneath the blood it had scales of vermilion interspersed with gold, and if Charlie didn't know better, he would have said each one was a ruby, mixed in with a tiny gold coin.

"Oh, Merlin's beard," he said to himself. "Wait till Billy sees this."

The creature relaxed a bit, as there was nowhere to go. Or perhaps it had just worn itself out. Charlie stroked its belly, where the scales smoothed out into soft flexible plates. Its tiny eyes glittered like fire. Soon it was altogether limp, although Charlie kept a firm hold on its head. He didn't quite trust it yet. But it was beautiful, and if left to grow would soon have wings, and perhaps large enough to fly. Charlie knew enough about dragons to know that not all of them were as good at flying as others. Some lived deep in the earth instead of ruling the sky. This might be an earth-bound one.

Perhaps he didn't need to bring it to Billy after all. They were going to be here for weeks. The cave could be his secret. He could come up here with a candle, and there might be more, deeper in the cave. Anyway, the numbness in his hand was wearing off, replaced by a rhythmic throbbing that grew more painful with each beat.

Reluctantly, he set the baby dragon gently down on the cave floor where the earth was smooth and there were no stones. It twisted itself onto its feet, hissed a few times, and then skittered so quickly into the black that it might have disappeared entirely.

He found a rag in his tunic pocket, grey with dirt, but he shook it out and wrapped it around his wounded hand. The curious excitement that came when he felt the dragonlet submit to his grasp still stayed with him, even though the creature was gone.

"I'll come back," he said, as if it could hear him, could understand. "I'll come back."


End file.
